2015 Goals: September Check-In

I can’t remember if I mentioned this at the time but I quit my job in April for various reason none of which I’m going to go into here. This month I was offered a job mostly out of the blue and I accepted it. I start next Thursday so I’ve been scrambling to get a lot of things completed before I go back to work. Which means that there’s actually been some progress on more or less everything on this list!

Attend a writer’s workshop

I have gathered intelligence, met and talked to other students as well as alumni (online and off), made up a packing list, gathered more intelligence, remade my packing list, started printing out some of the documents I may or may not need, decided on the knitting I want to take with me. I think I might be ready to go. Minus the packing and actually going. I also discovered that going to Viable Paradise makes me finally eligible to join Codex writer’s forum which, from everything my friend Brent tells me, is going to be supremely useful. I’m SO excited. WOHOO! *kermit flailing*

Actions

Attend the workshop!

Join Codex!

Win Writers of the Future

September has been all about a short story challenge; finish one short story every week of September. I’ve had to resort to writing a flash piece once which I wasn’t happy at all with but otherwise the results so far have been pretty good overall. There’s one more story left to write and then I just need to edit all the stories to get them out into circulation.

Actions

Write.

Revise. (In progress)

Submit.

Write.

Revise.

Submit.

Get my second novel to the submission stage

First draft done, resting period over, first read-through done, I am hip-deep in the actual edits. I had my Writing the Other class workshop the first four chapters and the synopsis and they had many, many comments. I’m hoping to have everything done before VP. Right now I’m thinking that I’ll send it to a friend of mine who is a freelance editor to go through while I’m at VP and recovering from from it. But I’ll need to check on her availability.

Actions

After the first draft is finished, let it rest for at least six weeks.

Edit. (In progress)

Make people read it.

Edit some more.

Submit.

Get an agent

I got another response after Worldcon which was not a rejection. I’ve got a new list and I’m slowly writing the personalizations on my query letters so that I can get the next queries out. Unless I happen to get an unexpected offer of representation before I manage to do that. 😀 I doubt I’ll be able to get the queries out before VP so, you know… you never know.